NOVEMBER 2024

[Carlos]

Hi, @Too Many Plants! , typical stalks and flowers of D. numidica

The species was transferred to Drimia in 2004 but first described in 1868 in genus Squilla. The chronology is:

Squilla numidica Jord. & Fourr. in Icon. Fl. Eur. 2: 1 (1868)

Urginea numidica (Jord. & Fourr.) Grey in Hardy Bulbs 2: 632 (1938)

Urginea maritima var. numidica (Jord. & Fourr.) Maire & Weiller in Fl. Afrique N. 5: 164 (1958)

Charybdis numidica (Jord. & Fourr.) Speta in Phyton (Horn) 38: 60 (1998)

D. numidica is a huge plant, with bulbs (with all tunics) reaching a small melon's size, with coriaceous brick-red tunics and a scape reaching 1,70 m. The flowers are numerous, about 1 cm wide and nearly white, sometimes with a faintly coloured midvein. The seeds are almost 1 cm long. It is a tetraploid (2n=40)

D maritima is smaller and has whitish to brownish, more papery outer tunics. The flowers are bigger, less numerous and with a well marked reddish-brown midvein. It is a hexaploid (2n=60)

[Too Many Plants!]

Hi, @Too Many Plants! , typical stalks and flowers if D. numidica

The species was transferred to Drimia in 2004 but first described in 1868 in genus Squilla. The chronology is:

Squilla numidica Jord. & Fourr. in Icon. Fl. Eur. 2: 1 (1868)

Urginea numidica (Jord. & Fourr.) Grey in Hardy Bulbs 2: 632 (1938)

Urginea maritima var. numidica (Jord. & Fourr.) Maire & Weiller in Fl. Afrique N. 5: 164 (1958)

Charybdis numidica (Jord. & Fourr.) Speta in Phyton (Horn) 38: 60 (1998)

D. numidica is a huge plant, with bulbs (with all tunics) reaching a small melon's size, with coriaceous brick-red tunics and a scape reaching 1,70 m. The flowers are numerous, about 1 cm wide and nearly white, sometimes with a faintly coloured midvein. The seeds are almost 1 cm long. It is a tetraploid (2n=40)

D maritima is smaller and has whitish to brownish, more papery outer tunics. The flowers are bigger, less numerous and with a well marked reddish-brown midvein. It is a hexaploid (2n=60)

Thanks for that thorough explanation, @Carlos! Appreciate the time and effort you put into that. Maybe @David Pilling can incorporate some of that info into his Wiki...

[Too Many Plants!]

Flower pic added...of same bulb from August 2021 when the bulb was much smaller and only two headed.

What is the interesting plant in the watering basin behind the Drimia's inflorescence?

Hi Ron, that is a cycad. Encephalartos Gratus. Unfortunately, I need to move it. It's in too much sun. Always looks great like that for a while, but eventually, it gets yellow-looking by the time we get to winter. Then the wind takes its toll beating it up further. It needs a spot with some afternoon shade and some protection from heavier winds (which I'm in VERY short supply of)! 

[Emanuele Mura]

The last Crocus sativus

of the pot. Seems I now have enough for a serious risotto.

[Carlos]

Hey, Emanuele, nice plant!

I didn't know that risotto carries saffron . ..

[Too Many Plants!]

Working our way into December...and my Moraea PolyStachya numbers have been increasing, and flowering 🪻 strong 💪🏻

These continue to spread and further naturalize in our Garden.

[CG100]

Polystachya is hardy to several degrees of frost - a few people grow it as a garden plant in the UK so long as it is in something like a raised bed so that summer rains drain fast.

The advantage of planting it out is that you can appreciate the flowers more easily - on a greenhouse bench, potted plants produce flowers at around or above eye-level.

[Arnold]

There's a number of Persian rice dishes that use Saffron as well.

Sour cherries and Saffron.

[Arnold]

I grow my Saffron  in the ground here just outside NYC. 

Why in a pot in Sardinia?  Keep away from predators?

[CG100]

It used to be grown in commercail quantities in the UK - hence Saffron Walden.

It is used in beyond countless recipes -it is traditional in cake/bread in Cornwall. Pilau rice usually has it in. Paella too.

Today the big producer is Spain but it is a traditional crop over a great deal of the Middle East, into Asia.

[MarkMazer]

" -it is traditional in cake/bread in Cornwall"
We sometimes include saffron when making a traditional ceremonial Jewish Challah bread.

Mark Mazer
Hertford, NC
USA

[CG100]

" -it is traditional in cake/bread in Cornwall"
We sometimes include saffron when making a traditional ceremonial Jewish Challah bread.

It will, no doubt, be on the www somewhere, but I could not even begin to guess why it is traditional in Cornwall, which is far too wet to grow it.
The county has traditionally been poor, relying greatly on hard manual labour in mining, fishing, quarrying, agriculture on not great land, for not great wages. (Today it relies heavily on tourism.)

Maybe use of saffron is relatively recent, but you wouldn't think so if you visit.

I love it in anything, so long as it is not drowned by other flavours - it makes the simplest bread or simple sponge cake, or rice, something really special. You also need amazingly little.

[Emanuele Mura]

Well, risotto can be made in a lot of different ways, but saffron is one of the best, a northern Italy regional variant.
As for growing it in a pot, there is an old man (my father) which threatens with his shovel every spot in the garden without a noticeable plant, so my best chance of protecting those who go dormant is to move pots around.
And Sardinia is actually considered a poor region, but I believe saffron to be produced here for at least a century, being it fundamental in many recipes of traditional festive sweets. 

[CG100]

I just checked production figures online, so I'll correct my comment above - Iran produces something like 80% of the world's saffron - somewhere around/in excess of 400 tonnes per year.

(Something like 150 flowers are required to produce one gramme, so 400 tonnes is something like 60 billion flowers (ten zeros))

Spain is third, after India

[Carlos]

Hi

I have never used true saffron to cook paella!! After using the industrial rubbish I moved on to turmeric. 

Saffron used to be widely grown in the central-southern part of Spain, but it has dwindled despite the high price it reaches. I remember that my grandmother, who was from that area, knew a song about the harvesting of saffron. Here is a bulb of Drimia numidica that I received from Rome, it was originally rescued from road works in southern Sardinia. In the second photo the outer tunics had fallen off.